


A Golden Haired Ghost

by Hinn_Raven



Series: A Different Game [7]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Forgiveness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Non-Chronological, Red Hood Stephanie Brown, Stephanie Brown is Robin, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-19 17:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13709304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: Bruce Wayne gave Stephanie Brown a costume and a new name, and watched her fall. Now, he tries to stop the Red Hood from falling further.





	A Golden Haired Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the midst of writing the next installment when I started writing a Bruce POV section, which strongly spiraled out of control. So I decided to write a short little thing exploring Bruce's role in this universe in general, since we haven't really checked in with him since the first entry. 
> 
> And then we got this. It was really interesting, finally having to sit down and hash out what exactly had been going on in Bruce's head, and I hope you guys enjoy the results!

**1\. A Smile Like Sunshine**

Bruce Wayne had given Stephanie Brown a costume of green, gold, and red, the name of Robin, and a utility belt full of gadgets, and then he had sent her off to war.

She was the oldest Robin to start; Dick had been ten, Jason thirteen, Tim twelve, but she was seventeen years old when she donned the mantle for herself. She was seventeen, had been Spoiler since she was fifteen. She had grown up, had fought for her survival on the streets of Gotham. She had given birth and given up the child. She was different than his previous Robins, but different still from Barbara or Cassandra.

She had a core of steel, this newest Robin. She had golden hair and a smile like sunshine and a laugh that filled the cave. She loved and hated with a firey passion like Jason, she was kind and stubborn like Dick.

She loved being Robin, loved belonging, loved the way they worked together, and although Bruce would have been reluctant to admit it at the time, that love was infectious.

She was Robin for only what felt like a glorious moment, but he _knew_. She would have been great, had the universe not snuffed her out. 

She fought with creativity, not grace, and her strength was undeniable. She was a light, bright beside him and his shadows, a kind, smiling face to contradict his scowl.

There was anger too, oh yes. She screamed and fought with him, she railed against injustice, at the flaws in the system. “It’s not _right_ ,” she would scream, tears streaming down her face.

“I know,” he would say, on his better days. “We’ll try to fix it.”

She was Robin, and Bruce Wayne sent her off to die.

And he would never forgive himself for that.

* * *

  **2\. A Wrench in the Mechanism**

She was breathing heavily, her eyes over bright, and she grabbed his arm. “I’m sorry!” She begged. “I didn’t know!”

“Robin.” Bruce pulled away. He didn’t have time for this. Gotham was drenched in chaos and blood. He didn’t think about her heart, or her fears. There was no time. People were dying. He would deal with this, deal with _her_ later, after the city was safe.

She would be no help here—she was emotional and upset, and he needed to do this alone. Perhaps things could be salvaged, despite the damage that she had done.

“ _Robin_ ,” he repeated. She stared at him, her mouth trembling ever-so-slightly, afraid. Later, after things were settled and with the benefit of hindsight, he would realize that she had thought he was going to take Robin from her.

He would then wonder: if he had, would she have stayed alive?

 “Go to Orpheus,” he said, instead of voicing her worst fears. “Help him.”

“No!” She shook her head, her eyes wide beneath her mask. “Batman— _Bruce_ —let me stay, let me help you, let me—”

 _Let me fix this_.

She hadn’t known, he would tell Clark later, his heart heavy in a way that it had not been since Jason. He hadn’t told her about his plans to topple organized crime. The plan—months, even years, of efforts—toppled by one seventeen-year-old girl, who had thought Bruce was in space and couldn’t be reached. It had not even occurred to him to warn her of the plan. He had not realized that she still had her network of informants and friends from her days as Spoiler, and would hear of the meeting between the families, the gangs, and then try to disrupt the thing on her own.

Maybe it was to impress him, maybe it was to prove to herself that she was Robin, or maybe it was just because it was what she thought was right.

But she had crashed into the meeting, and kickstarted a war in the process. She had crippled his plans by publicly toppling Matches Malone in a humiliating fashion, and only afterwards, had she learned who he was, and that she had thrown years of plans out the window.

He might be able to salvage this, if Orpheus could just do what needed to be done…

But to do that, Orpheus would need help. Barbara had sent Orpheus the plan, the next step, the way forward. Things were almost in place, but to do that, Bruce needed Robin somewhere safe, and the safest place, where she could still be useful, was with Orpheus.

“No,” Bruce said. “Robin. _Go_.”

There was no time to explain. He could not coddle. She needed to do what had to be done and listen to him.

Stephanie Brown did not die, as some would say, because she was reckless, angry, or a girl. People would gossip, laugh, sneer, and discuss her death until there was nothing more to be said. Psychologists would pull her apart on television, every facet of their analysis wrong. Newspapers would speculate, and even the superhero community would whisper.

But Bruce knew the truth.

Stephanie Brown died because she did exactly what he asked.

Her eyes were full of tears the last time he saw her alive, as she nodded tensely, and ran to where Orpheus should be waiting for her, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, her grappling gun in her hand.

But Orpheus was dead, and the Black Mask had intercepted the message telling Orpheus where to meet Robin.

Stephanie Brown, on Bruce’s orders, ran right into a trap.

* * *

**3\. An Open Casket**

Bruce had not been the one to find her, in the end. He wondered, years later, if she would have preferred it if he had. If that would have made it a less bitter pill to swallow, if she had been found by family, instead of by the police.

They had taken photographs, which Bruce had seen, later. The press would never find them—Barbara had gotten the digital copies, and Cassandra had destroyed the physical ones.

She had been unmasked, over the course of her five days of torture. Her eyes were open, staring forward, right at the camera, blood trickling out of her mouth. Bruce felt as if she was accusing him, demanding to know why this had happened to her.

He knew in intimate detail what had happened. He had read the reports from the police and the doctors, had seen the speculation, trying to reconstruct it. He even heard what the gangs said, _bragging_ about what had been done to her, about how she had screamed.  

Bruce had not gone to the funeral. But he had visited her body, her coffin, the night before. She wore a skirt and a suit jacket, a seventeen-year-old girl, clothes she never would have worn while she was alive. They had styled her hair and done their best to hide her injuries. She would have hated it, hated all of it, of that much he was certain.

There would be an open casket, at the service.

There had not been one for Jason—at the time, Bruce did not yet know that Jason had not died. It had been a closed coffin to bury the body, which had been reduced to ash, and a scrap of uniform. It was beyond dental records, beyond facial recognition, and Bruce had accepted this. The real funeral for Jason Todd was in a glass case, in the cave, the closure he could never get.

(Jason would return a year after the funeral. Sheila Haywood had dragged him from that building, comatose and brain damaged. Lies, memory loss, and a twisted sense of loyalty, meant for Catherine Todd but stolen by Sheila Haywood, had kept him away before then. Leslie had found him, recognized him, saved him, and kept him away longer, until she was sure of his memories and identity.)

Bruce Wayne had built his son a glass memorial in a cave, to compensate for the closure he could not get from a body.

But Stephanie Brown was _here_ , in front of him, and Bruce Wayne wept for her, standing over the broken body in a box.

He cried for the girl who had raced away from him to meet her killer, her hair floating behind her like a cape, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

He wept for Stephanie Brown, he wept for Robin, he wept for Spoiler, but he did not attend the funeral.

And Stephanie Brown, not knowing about this, would hate him for it when she was ressurected, and he would have nothing to say in his own defense.

* * *

**4\. A Golden Haired Ghost**

There was a woman in a purple hood with blonde curls and a wide smile at the party, and Bruce felt his heart stop.

She was the right height, and the shade of the dress was the exact one that Spoiler had favored, the sweep and elegance of the dress the kind of thing that she might have chosen for herself.

For a moment, he wanted to stagger forward, to call her name, sure it was a dream of sorts, and that she let out that laugh, the one he had not heard since…

But it was not Stephanie Brown, and he forced himself to turn away.

It had been years, but she haunted him still. A golden haired ghost, mocking him for everything; his failures, his guilt, his inability to avenge her.

Stephanie Brown had died. He had buried her and mourned her. They all had. The loss had shattered Cass and Tim, inflicting wounds that even Jason’s return had been unable to even begin to heal.

So Bruce Wayne turned away, and avoided the woman who was dressed like his greatest failure for the rest of the night, not knowing that Stephanie Brown was watching him through the scope of a sniper rifle.

* * *

**5\. A Mistake**

Stephanie Brown sat in the cell, staring at nothing, and Bruce Wayne watched.

She was scarred, battered, and she was so in ways that went beyond Bruce or Cassandra. (Bruce knew what she thought; she saw herself as broken.) Her fingers were crooked, her face was scarred, and Bruce had a role in those marks. She had cut her hair short, but in the cell, not allowed to access an electric razor, or indeed, scissors, it was already starting to grow out, her bangs hanging into her eyes.

He had not been inside to talk to her, not yet. Cassandra kept telling him not to; warning him that he would only anger her, that there was only hurt down that way.

But she was hopeful now, that maybe there had been enough time, or at least, that he could not possibly make things worse.

It proved how much she idolized and loved him, that someone as smart as Cassandra Cain underestimated Bruce Wayne’s ability to hurt Stephanie Brown.

He entered the cell, moving as silently as he could, half hoping to delay the realization.

“Give up Cass,” she called, not having looked up. “I’m a lost cause.”

“I disagree.”

She leapt to her feet, spun to face him, and then froze.

She wore a plain black shirt with a high neck and long sleeves, to conceal her scars. The drawers were full of colors that Cassandra and Crystal Brown had picked out with loving care, but Stephanie refused to wear any of the colors associated with Spoiler or Robin.

“What are you doing here?” It was a fair question; he had not visited her in some time. He had left that to Cass, Tim, Crystal, Barbara, and even Alfred. He had known he would not be welcome and had wanted to give her time.

When she had been dead, there had been things that he had wanted to tell her.

“I need to talk to you.”

She crossed her arms and widened her stance. Her eyes were stormy and dangerous as she faced him. “Then talk.”

Under that gaze, he faltered. Prepared speeches, ones that had rolled around in his mind for thousands of hours until they should be as smooth as polished glass, shattered completely. 

Stephanie Brown had always been good at undermining his plans.

He swallowed. “I… I know that Tim becoming Robin so soon after—well. After. I know how that looks.” Her expression did not change one inch. “When you were Robin—”

And then she started to laugh.

It was not the laugh that he remembered from when she was Robin; the light, wonderful laugh that felt as if it was filling all of Gotham, or at least the Cave. It was harsh and bitter, twisted and angry. It was a laugh for the Red Hood, not Robin.

“I wasn’t Robin,” she snarled, turning her gaze back to him. “I know what I was! You were just trying to lure Tim back! I wasn’t _Robin_ , you liar, you bastard, you—”

“That isn’t true,” he said, feeling that the situation was spiraling rapidly out of control, slipping through his fingers like sand. “You were—” 

“I never mattered! You didn’t come to my _funeral_ , you didn’t even notice when I crawled out of my _goddamn_ grave, you—”

“You what?” He said, startled. He had excavated the grave; there was an empty coffin, a fake, replacing it. He had assumed that Talia had stolen her body and placed her in the Lazarus Pit, some sort of twisted form of mercy or kindness, or perhaps cruelty. He knew a Lazarus Pit was involved, Talia had confirmed that. But how had she come back to life inside of her own coffin?

And how had he not noticed?

She let out a scream of fury and lunged at him, her hands grasping for his throat. He twisted out of the way, and she followed, her eyes over bright with tears she was refusing to let fall.

“Look at me!” She screamed. “I’m not her! I’m not who you want me to be!” 

She didn’t say who he wanted her to be, but she didn’t need to. Bruce grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her backwards, away from the door so he could leave. She sprawled in a heap on the floor, and ripped off the shirt she was wearing, exposing the horrific autopsy scar which her undershirt could not conceal.

“ _I’m not her_!” She yelled after him. “

Cassandra was waiting for him, her eyes cold and disappointed.

“You screwed up.”

“Yes. I know.”

* * *

**6\. A Bat's Confession**

“Don’t touch me,” she said, leaning away from him. The darkness and the rain made it difficult to tell, but Bruce could see blood, when lightning flashed.

“You’re injured,” he said, his hands remaining by his side, even though he wanted to reach out to her.

“Oh shut up!” She swayed where she stood, her hands pressing to the side where the wound was. “It’s not like you _care_!”

“Stephanie,” he said, her name heavy in his chest as he says it, as it always was. “You need medical attention. Let me help.”

For a moment, he thought she would refuse him, out of spite, and he would not have been able to blame her if she had.

But the injury must have been worse than he realized, because after a long moment of staring at him, she leaned against the nearby chimney. Finally nodding, she let herself collapse, sliding to the ground with a hiss of pain.

This truce that they had formed, since his resurrection, was an uncertain one. In his absence, she had grown, she had healed. She had a protégé now and was friends with Cassandra again. She was slowly, surely, carving herself a place in Gotham; a hero, not a crime lord.

But he didn’t have a role in that healing, in her new world, except as the man who had let her down, time and time again.

He moved forward, keeping his movements slow and well telegraphed, as he began to investigate the extent of her injuries.

“Do you remember,” he said, knowing what a risk he was taking. She had accepted his return, and no longer fled from him, but there was hurt and conditions and rules. She might run away from him if he said this, might be hurt again.

But he had to tell her this.

He had died once already without telling her. He had dared not entrust this to a message, had not included this in his last words to her. It had not felt appropriate, had felt like an excuse. “Do you remember, when you were Robin, the case with the Penguin’s henchman, Gates?”

“We didn’t realize his daughter— ” She hissed in pain.

“Yes. You saw her before I did. You pulled me back. I was angry, but you stopped me.”

Her eyes were closed tightly, and Bruce could see that tears were threatening to fall, but he pretended not to.

“That was important,” he said. “I… I needed you there. You understood. You were angry like I was, but you didn’t let it stop you from seeing what was important. You wouldn’t let me hurt him, because his daughter was watching.”

“Batman’s a hero,” she muttered, her voice shaky with pain.

_“The innocent should not fear the Batman.”_

She had looked so _sure,_ when she said that. Seventeen years old, long blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, chin steady, hands on her hips.

She wanted more from him, _demanded_ more from him. Her childhood had only been the way it was because the system—the police, social services, Bruce himself—had let her fall through the cracks.

She saw him, with his flaws, and still had looked up to him, and still thought he could be a hero.

Maybe he shouldn’t say this next part. It might not help anything. His words wouldn’t change anything. She wouldn’t care about the reasons Black Mask wasn’t dead or in prison, wouldn’t care about glass cases that served as coffins, wouldn’t care about headstones that were visited months about the funeral. His words couldn’t change anything. Maybe she required action, not words, maybe there was some way or another that he could _prove_ to her that he cared, instead of wasting his breath on words which could only reopen old injuries.

His explanations would not change how she died. It would change nothing. Not his failures, because even with the full context, he knew as well as she did that he had failed her, had been failing her all her life.

“I was stupid,” she said, her own coda to the story, not knowing what Bruce was thinking.

And it was that, more than anything that made his decision.

 “No. You were young.” He wanted to reach out and push her hair out of her face, but he knew that gesture would not be welcome.

I have something to tell you,” he said. “And I _need_ you to listen.”

* * *

**7\. A Broken Window**

When Stephanie Brown was dead and buried, Batman had ripped his way through Black Mask’s headquarters. He had sent the others away, on pretenses of the police not trusting them after the war, but really, it was for this.

Rage and grief and guilt raged through him. He had spoken with the new police commissioner, Michael Akins, and he had been told that the Black Mask would not be facing legal repercussions for the war.

“There’s nothing _to_ do,” the man said, furious and uncomfortable at Batman’s presence in his office. “We lost a lot of good people in the War, Batman, not just your sidekick. People are _scared_. Good cops are taking bribes, dirty cops have gone clean, half of the officers I trusted are dead or out and I don’t know if I can trust their replacements. It’s going to take _years_ for me to clean out even one unit! And even if I _could_ put together a task force I could trust, there’s no lawyer with enough guts to prosecute, no judge who can’t be bribed, no jury that couldn’t be threatened! We’re not getting a damned warrant to let us even prove anything. The mayor’s told me that even if we were handed probable cause from a cape, it’s the badge of the cop who took it and the evidence goes into the incinerator!”

Akins hasn’t been getting enough sleep. Bruce knows that feeling all too well. His own rest had been tormented by images of Stephanie Brown’s body, by the deaths of the war, of the fact that this was all, completely and absolutely, his fault. Akins had declared war on vigilantes, blaming them for the disaster, and Bruce could not even blame him, although the man had no idea that Bruce had literally been the one to cause it.

“And he knows it too! That smug bastard is untouchable, and he _knows_ it. Why do you think he’s been so open about gloating? He killed my officers, killed your Robin, and he’s going to get away with it!” He slammed his drink down on the desk. “Do you think I like that? I hate it as much as you do.”

“He won’t get away with it,” Bruce growled. His heart was racing in his ears.

Years ago, when the Joker had proved once again that Arkham was incapable of holding him for long, Bruce had realized that he would never be able to have justice for his son.

He would not go through this a second time. He refused.

“Maybe not forever. But for now? He’s safe, and he knows it. The law won’t touch him.” The man stood up, and he pointed at the window. His hands were steady, and Bruce could see why Jim Gordon had selected this man as his successor. “Now get out of my office.”

Bruce had left, and then he had stood on a rooftop for a long time. Stephanie had always laughed at him, when she’d caught him doing that, even when she had been Spoiler. She had refused to allow him to be too serious for too long, needling him. “I _know_ you’re physically capable of smiling, you can’t fool me!” She’d say, before asking him if she could drive the Batmobile.

He’d never let her.

And now she never would.

Clark Kent had pulled him back from killing the Joker after Jason.

But Clark was not here this second time; no one was, all of them sure enough that Bruce was capable of handling this, not realizing the risk.

If Stephanie would have been there, she would have known better. She did not idolize him the way Cassandra did, she did not have the faith in heroes that Tim still had in those days. She would have known better, and not let him go alone.

But she was not there; she was buried beneath a simple headstone.

The Black Mask was not ready for him; he was already sitting on his laurels, emboldened by Batman’s mourning period.

He was a fool.

Stephanie Brown was not his child; he had no such place in her life. At his best he was a mentor, an advisor, perhaps even a father figure, but he doubted it. At his worse, which was far more common than his best when it came to her, he was another doubter, an obstacle in her way to the greatness she should have achieved one day.

Later, she would think this was why she did not matter; her not being his child.

But Bruce was not thinking about that when he blew open the doors to the Black Mask’s penthouse.

All he was thinking about was a fifteen-year-old girl who had painted words on the side of a building, trying to stop her father, wearing a purple hood that she had sewn herself, refusing to go home because Batman had told her to.

The Black Mask was sitting down, surrounded by people who in another day and age might be courtiers. He recognized several of them; a few mobsters, some of the Mask’s men, and two working girl’s who Robin had been friends with.

But he didn’t care. He was only focused on Roman Sidonis, the Black Mask, the man who had killed Robin.

He leapt forward with intent to kill. Those who were armed drew their guns.

Was this how Clark felt? Invincible, like the bullets were nothing more than distractions? In the adrenaline and fury, Bruce wove between them with a precision that Cassandra would be proud of. Bruce threw out his hand, and batarangs slammed into hands, into the barrels of pistols, and into feet.

“You should run,” he snarled, a moment of mercy. It would be for the best that these men were not present for this.

They did, practically tripping over each other in their haste.

Bruce moved forward again, as if he had all the time in the world.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Mask said. He had his gun out but hadn’t bothered to get to his feet. He was pretending not to be afraid, but Bruce knew that it was nothing but a bluff. “You’ve still got a lot to lose, Batman.”

Batman kept moving towards him, letting him grow more afraid with each footstep. Roman Sidonis was a coward at heart; a coward and a sadist, a monster who craved and loved power, yet so rarely struck out at anyone who could fight back.

“You don’t know what that girl spilled,” he babbled. “She gave it all up, you know. The caves, your name, and don’t think I haven’t had precautions taken—”

“She didn’t tell you anything,” Bruce said, grabbing Sidonis up by his silk shirt. Stephanie Brown had died, keeping Bruce’s secrets, and Bruce hated himself for that almost as much as he hated himself for the rest of it.

“You sound so sure, don’t you? C’mon, you know I’m good at what I do.” His warped smile was almost as uncanny as the Joker’s. “You should’ve heard her _scream_ , and _beg_ —”

Bruce let out an inhuman roar and threw Sidonis to the ground hard enough to wind him. And then he pressed a button on his belt.

The glass wall, overlooking the Gotham skyline, exploded with the force of the C4 packs that Bruce had placed there earlier, exposing them all to the blowing winds and rain. The wind howled through the penthouse, blowing papers everywhere, and rain blew in with it, making the sleek marble floor slippery. Glass was everywhere, and it crunched beneath his feet as Bruce moved forward once again.

“The _fuck_ —” Whatever came next was cut off by Bruce grabbing him by the throat and hauling him towards the gaping hole in the side of the building.

That was when he saw them.

The two women—girls, they were _girls_ , about Stephanie’s age, they were still here, staring at him with wide, fearful expressions. They were damp from the rain, their hair was a mess from the wind, but at least the glass had not injured either of them. They were scared, but they did not run.

One of them was blonde.

And her words echoed in his mind.

With a roar of fury, he threw the Black Mask out of the window, and for a moment, he just listened to the coward’s screams as he plunged downward.

The grappling gun went off a second later, but for a moment, he imagined it didn’t.

Dragging Sidonis back up, soaking wet and shaking in fear, Bruce leaned in close to the Mask’s ear.

“The police can’t touch you. Maybe you won’t face justice in court. But I will hunt you until the end of your days, Sidonis.”

Stephanie Brown had wanted him to be a hero.

“Enjoy your empire. It won’t last.”

Knocking him out took only a moment, and then he turned to those two girls.

“Let me take you home.”

* * *

**8\. A Hidden Smile**

Stephanie Brown was a scrappy thing at age fifteen. Scrappy and unafraid and proud, refusing to back down a single inch.

“Aren’t you scared of him?” He heard Tim whisper to her after a lecture.

“Good guys don’t have to be scared of Batman,” she snorted. “ _Criminals_ are the superstitious, cowardly lot.” 

And Bruce Wayne found himself smiling, with his back turned to her.

* * *

**9\. A Beginning**

She stared at him as he finished that story. The rain was finally letting up, only leaving behind a pitch-black sky and the faintest of drizzles.

“You deserve to know,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. You were right. I let you down. You were my Robin, and I sent you away, and I shouldn’t have done that. You deserved… you deserved more.”

She laughed, and it was open and honest. It was still bitter, but it wasn’t the laugh she had given in the cell. It wasn’t the laugh of Robin, but it wasn’t the Red Hood either. Maybe it was something in between, or the start of a new laugh altogether.

“Well, I _was_ a pretty shitty Robin.”

“No. You weren’t.”

She paused, uncertain of what to do next. He had no idea of what she was thinking about this confession. Had he done what he feared, and destroyed what progress they had managed to make since his own resurrection?

He was done dressing her injuries. He got to his feet, and offered her his hand to help her up.

She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes stormy and conflicted.

But finally, she reached up her own hand, and placed it in his.

It felt like a beginning.

* * *

**+1.**

She stood in the center of the room, her helmet laying at her feet. Bruce moved to stand behind her, and she did not move away.

“They took her,” she said. She spoke quietly, as if the reality of the situation had not yet sunk in. He could hardly blame her. “I told her to go somewhere safe while I fought that… that _thing_ , and they took her.”

Bruce wondered, if she could see the parallel that he saw. Did she see herself in Nell Little, in this moment?

He placed a hand on her shoulder, and again, she let him. The apartment, her _home_ , was in shambles around them, and she remained perfectly still beneath his hand.

Nell Little had not gone quietly; Stephanie had trained her too well for that. Furniture was smashed, curtains ripped, and there was glass on the floor from a broken window. There was no blood anywhere to be seen, a small comfort. There might be fingerprints or hairs scattered somewhere—there had to be some clues to help them find her—but right now, Stephanie was not focused on that.

“You’ll find her,” he promised. He did not tell her anything else; it would not help. What use would there be, comparing their situations? There was no comfort there. Nor would telling her that he understood what she was going through.

She nodded once, then turned to leave the apartment, barely pausing to pick up her helmet.

Bruce followed her, only sparing one last glance for the object which had caused such panic, the identifier of who had taken Nell Little, who had snatched her so boldly from the home of the Red Hood.

On Nell’s pillow, lay a single owl feather.

**_To be continued._ **

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @[secretlystephaniebrown](http://secretlystephaniebrown.tumblr.com/).


End file.
